Switzerland and Italy - Coles Notes Style

I actually have a whole half an hour to produce this post, but much has happened since the last one; I'll try to squish it all in.

After leaving Geneva we took the train to Interlaken. The first night we stayed in the Funny Farm hostel. It was interesting, had everything all in one. That night we went to the club downstairs and watched a Canadian musician sing and play along with this Brazilian hand drummer (Pepe), it was quite good. The place was packed with football fans and Swiss army men. The next day was a hunt for a campsite and stove gas. We were successful in the former, that was after getting caught up in a parade of Dutch parade 2500 people strong. We went climbing for the first time on the trip as well. The style is totally different, I found it difficult then, but after a few days here in Cinque Torri, it is getting easier. We met a Swiss fellow by the name of Patrick at the crag as well and after some more shenanigans the next day we caught up with him. He bought all the ingrediants and fed us a real swiss fondue for dinner and let us crash at his place (this included laundry, showers and internet). After the night at Patrick's we took a train to Luzern.

Luzern was an interesting mideval style town. The funniest thing was happening when we arrived though. We walked out of the train station right into at least 500 people in wet suits carrying pool toys. I heard some english and asked what they were up to. Apparently they were floating 25km down the river, because this was the one day a year when they were allowed to. What more reason would you need? It began with them all gathering on a bridge and at the stroke of 11am they all jumped in. After witnessing this we checked out some of the other sites and hoped on a train to Lugano. We only spent one night in Lugano (a mediterranean stlye town in the south of Switzerland) before catching the train to Venice.

Vencie was incredible. I think it was what finally made me realize we're half way around the world (I think I was still in shock in Paris). It was so different, and I loved just meandering down the streets, with a gelato trying to figure out a way across each of the canals. The first night we just wandered eventually finding ourselves in St. Mark's square, which we would see in more detail the next day. We also picked up tickets to see Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" performed in a church with amazing acoustics the following night. That night we went to the "bar" at our "campsite". It was actully quite happening. They must base there business soley on the Contiki groups dominating the place. The following day was a full day in Venice. We saw St. Mark's basilica and the doge's (duke's) palace. The palace was unbelievable. Understandably so David's favourite part was the Golden Staircase. I can't comprehend the time and effort that used to go into creating such magnificent works of art. That afternoon we went to Murano and were fortunate to see a glass blowing/shaping demostration. It was incredible the things these men could create with such accuracy and relatively quickly. Unfortunately the vaporetto there was relatively expensive and we had not enough Euros left to purchase something. That night was the concert. Although not mindblowing it was still very impressive and I could think of no better place to enjoy it. The following morning we booked a rental car we would pick up in Bolzano a few hours later.

Bolzano looked cool, but wasn't our destination. We picked up the car and drove to Cortina, the closest place to the Cinque Torri in the Dolomites. It's an interesting limestone climbing area right in the Alps and we've had the chance to do some amazing hiking here yesterday too. I experienced my first Via Ferrata :D Yesterday we did some exploring and wound up scaling several peaks. Unfortunately we were chased away by a storm about 20m away from the last one, but it was still a day full of accomplishments. We're here till Tuesday, then its on to Innsbruck, Austria.

Bye for now,

Jenn